““Maybe you just don’t have it. Maybe Romanolli was wrong about you? Promise, but no follow through…” She turned and began to walk away. “You know what, Kathy,” I said, spinning around in my chair and standing up, all in one motion. “FUCK YOU.” The silence that spread through the floor was immense. A pin-drop. A mouse-fart. Pick your idiom. I expected the full wrath of Kathy Bohane in that moment. I expected the ax. I expected fire and brimstone and Sodom and Gomorrah. But I received silence. I sat back down, stared into the black emptiness of the typewriter keys in front of me, and churned out 489 words on raising a daughter as a single father in New York. I left in on Kathy’s desk and walked out of The Times building that night, knowing that I’d have to find another career. The next day, those 489 words were on the front page of The New York Times.””
